Mother Earth

They had a critically lauded first album and a second that was brim-full of beautiful melodies, whilst their lead singer Matt Deighton was an obvious candidate for stardom. And at one stage it seemed that they were on the verge, but then the band’s complicated and colourful history got in the way

Mother Earth emerged from some sessions that Acid Jazz Record's founder Eddie Piller produced for his long-time friend Bunny in the Summer of 1991, these took the form of a whole load of Bunny’s mates turning up and jamming over samples and rhythms put together by him and Eddie. Out of this emerged not only the band’s debut album ‘Stoned Woman’, but also the nucleus of the band. Matt Deighton on guitar and vocals, Chris White on drums, Neil Corcoran on bass, Shauna Green and Marie Jamille on vocals, with Bunny doing whatever he could. While James Taylor (James Taylor Quartet) played organ and Simon Bartholomew (Brand New Heavies) layed down additional guitar parts. In need of a full time organist and before their debut gig at the Acid Jazz Christmas Party which also saw Acid Jazz signing Jamiroquai perform, Bryn Barklam joined the band. Bryn was working in a record shop that conveniently had an extensive jazz organ section on vinyl, he saw an advert in the back pages of a music paper from a band with a Hammond C3 looking for an organist. Bryn joined Route 73, an R&B influenced indie band, and played several pubs and clubs around London. One Sunday, struggling to carry the Hammond out of the rehearsal rooms, he literally bumped into the next band to use the room - Mother Earth. The classic line-up was complete.



The first Mother Earth album 'Stoned Woman' appeared in May 1992 and after a slow start it really took off after a page review by Ian McCann in the NME. Critically the album's mix of new and old went down well, with the beats and wah-wah groove of 'Theme from Riot on 103rd Street' perfectly conjuring up the images of New York fire escapes and cops chasing robbers, without ever being cheesy. The title track 'Stoned Woman' was the most song based track on the album and soon became the crowd stopper in the band's live show. As 1992 progressed the band developed as a real live unit, something that inevitably caused problems as none of the member had expected to be part of a living, breathing outfit. First up, Marie left as she didn't really want to be in the band. Next it became clear that Bunny's role was a little too undefined to keep the band happy. So the band made it's first recordings since the 'Stone Woman' album and he didn't appear on either. By early 1993 he had gone too.

The first single that appeared was a version of Santana's 'Hope You're Feeling Better', which was followed early in 1993 by the 'Mr. Freedom' EP. The title track which featured backing vocals from Paul Weller and the instrumental 'Help Me Up' (this title inspired by a plea from the keyboard player Bryn Barklam) were both firm live favourites. 'Have the Time' was a weird number that could never have fitted anywhere but a b-side, whilst 'Time of the Future' was liked so much it was reconfigured to become the band's Autumn 1993 single. Part of the reason for this was that 1993 had become a year that alternated between live work - tours of the UK, Europe and Japan - and the painstaking recording of the band's second album.

The band were finding it easy to finish the more far-out and spacey of their songs, but tying down the three or four minute masterpieces was proving difficult. Eight or nine months of drifting from expensive studio to expensive studio eventually found five of the new album's tunes recorded in a week at Acid Jazz Studios, the week before the mastering deadline. The pressure was enormous and saw the band shed another member in singer Shauna Greene.



That said the album 'The People Tree' was a masterpiece featuring contributions from Paul Weller, James Taylor, and soulstress D.C. Lee. With cuts like 'Find It' showing the band's hard aggressive edge, whilst in 'Institution Man' there is a space-rock feel, tightly honed to a rock-solid groove and a tight song structure. Although the whole album stands up there are two stand-out cuts, both ballads, and both absolutely beautiful. 'Jesse' was chosen as the single, but it could have easily been the Curtis Mayfield inspired 'Apple Green'. The album came housed in a sleeve photographed by legendary rock photographer Gered Mankowitz, and its relative success seemed to lay the door wide open for Mother Earth to break through to stardom.

Yet all was not well, only one recording session was completed in 1994, as the band toured 'The People Tree' and by the time the band reconvened for a week a Chiswick Reach Studios in early 1995 all was clearly not well. The sessions produced nothing and the next single was in fact one of their cuts recorded the previous year; 'Freethinker'.



The third studio album 'You Have Been Watching' was eventually ready in early nineteen ninety six, and despite everything it contained some fantastic songs such as the singles (Never Gonna Get) to War, and the supremely laid-back 'Compare Yourself'. But the whole project was filled with desperation and even its title 'You Have Been Watching.' rang with finality. Matt Deighton had got married and recorded his debut solo album ‘Villager’ earlier in the year. It was a much more folk orientated album compared to the bands work. The album received huge critical acclaim, despite Matt being unable to promote it live due to his commitments to the band. Because it had got far better reactions than Mother Earth were getting, and the band felt worried about his commitment. To top this drummer Chris White left and was replaced by 17-year-old José. The band toured on until 1996, and a live album 'The Desired Effect' appeared. It wasn't a bad record but it didn't really catch the band at their peak. It was effectively the end for them – exiting the world as quickly as they came in. It could have been so different.



Matt Deighton joined Paul Weller’s band for his Heavy Soul tour in early nineteen ninety seven and remained as lead guitarist until late nineteen ninety nine. ‘You are the Healer’, Matt’s second solo album, was released on Barley Wheel Records in March two thousand. Once again a very enthusiastic press surrounded the album, which again was not promoted live, as suddenly Matt found himself thrust into the limelight in an unexpected way! After the well-publicised rift between Oasis brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher, which led to Noel pulling out of the band’s European tour, Matt was invited to take his place on guitar. Reviews for the Oasis tour were extremely complementary about Matt’s musical contribution to the band, and the end of the year saw ‘You are The Healer’ voted into the top twenty albums of the year in Record Collector. After Mother Earth, Bryn went on to record with The Chords and play organ for Buzzcocks at the Sex Pistols reunion gig at Finsbury Park. Currently his new band is an instrumental Hammond power trio consisting of organ, drums and guitar named 'Captain Hammond'.



In 2004 the album ‘The Further Adventures of….’ was released. It was a compilation of material the band recorded that never saw the light of day.

Featuring some of the great unreleased moments from the bands career, with guests like the aforementioned Robinson, Andy Bell (from Ride & Oasis), Bernardo Custarde (Santana), Dee Cee Lee (whose vocal features on the first ever remix from Weller's producer Brendan Lynch - the as yet unheard Jesse Gospadelic Dub mix) as well as a host of other unreleased material with the likes of Mike Bandoni, Greg Boraman, and vocalists including The Prisoners’ Graham Day, Xan, the now infamous Kym Marsh,

and the excellent Weller-esque Matt Woodman. In fact Weller himself appeard on the album too (on harmonica). The album brought together archive material, plus some rarities and oddments, giving a further sixteen tracks for Mother Earth fans to add to their collection.

Last year an expanded deluxe double cd edition of 'The People Tree' was released. Containing an additional 13 tracks which bring together the contemporaneous singles, B-sides and two previously unreleased songs.



A fitting tribute to 'One of the Greatest Overlooked Bands of the 90's'.



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